Topic: Recapitulation?

[tangerine dream]

I remember reading somewhere here not long ago, QS posted I believe about recapitulation possibly not being completely necessary.   Now, I can't find the thread or post, so maybe it was a dream , but at any rate it brings up something i have been contemplating a lot lately.  Any of you have an idea or opinion?  I seem to be leaning toward the idea that recap, while an effective tool, is not entirely necessary.  Maybe there are other ways to free the energy that has become trapped in and by our past.  maybe the energy doesn't actually become trapped?  Maybe, once we successfully raise our own vibration and acquire enough personal power, recapitulation becomes somewhat redundant.  Just some ponderings...

[nichi]

I don't know ...
But, I have been of the mind in the past few years that we can get caught in the past even more than we would have been, through the process. This might vary from individual to individual, though.

[Angela]

hey Tang...was it this one? ...    
Re: Conflict « Reply #4 on: January 20, 2008, 12:53:44 PM »

I think there are very ritualistic recap techniques, and then there are what I would describe as hands-on techniques.  To me the ritualistic techniques involve the formal  CC in the box, closet, or other enclosed space, using the prescribed breathing techniques.  I think this is great for certain people.  I liked it to start out when I first began recapping... but lately (and I noticed I did this in the past, not knowing what the hell recapitulation was, or who the hell cc was) I've  been using what I call the hands-on technique...it involves a more proactive approach where you actually go back to the place or interact with the person you're recapping.  It can be extremely stressful, so I don't recommend it for everyone, but it really puts you face to face with the fear, anger, etc. and when it takes effect, it's almost a immediate dissolution of the original attachment.

[erik]

A thought on recapitulation that has been on my mind for a long time.
My experience says that the intent with which one recapitulates is crucial.

If the intent is to 'work with the past experience with the aim of healing past wounds, etc.', it only leads to a process with no end.

If the intent is to 're-claim the energy and utterly and resolutely extract myself from the past ties', then the process becomes much more determined and certain (and much harder as it really means erasing past life and personal history at emotional level). It really is 'good bye' to emotional past with no way back. Finito. Over.

Thus, it is up to making a choice and pursuing it to the end - in whatever form it comes. I have not found a mild way, nor a way around recapitulation.

Healing oneself and treating inner child well is a complementary but, nevertheless, a different process. I did recap first and patted myself on the shoulder later.

[Michael]

recapitulation possibly not being completely necessary.

first question... necessary for what?

[Quantum Shaman]

I remember reading somewhere here not long ago, QS posted I believe about recapitulation possibly not being completely necessary.   Now, I can't find the thread or post, so maybe it was a dream , but at any rate it brings up something i have been contemplating a lot lately.  Any of you have an idea or opinion?  I seem to be leaning toward the idea that recap, while an effective tool, is not entirely necessary.  Maybe there are other ways to free the energy that has become trapped in and by our past.  maybe the energy doesn't actually become trapped?  Maybe, once we successfully raise our own vibration and acquire enough personal power, recapitulation becomes somewhat redundant.  Just some ponderings...

It was probably me who posted that general comment somewhere.  Basically, my feeling based on years of experience at this point is that recapitulation is a process that is vastly misunderstood.  The ritualistic approach used by CC never worked for me, but over time I came to realize that as one BECOMES a warrior/sorcerer, one essentially SHEDS the past in the same way a snake sheds its skin.  The past becomes... well... a thing of the past.  That doesn't mean we don't benefit from some manner of recap, but for me there is a process which I refer to as "the teflon warrior" approach, wherein as the warrior matures in her processes, the "stuff" from the past (or even the "stuff" we accumulate in the Now) ceases to "stick" to us because when we have lost self-importance, the barnacles of "baggage" have no place to attach.

The overall result is that we wake up one day and realize that the self of the past is like a phantom past life - a different person - and that is literally the case. The warrior in the now is not the same person she was 10 years ago, 20 years ago.  I personally believe this is where the xtian concept of "rebirth" comes from - because once a warrior of ANY path has that "awakening", it is like opening one's eyes into a new & different life.

Now, even with that being said, there is still the AWARENESS which must accompany the process if the process is to be effective & long-lasting.  The awakening itself isn't enough, in other words.  One has to maintain the awareness that the "stuff" that happens to us is not who-we-are, nor even what we are.  It is only part of a phantom inventory, and as such doesn't require some ritualistic process of "reliving", but the awareness of "releasing."

Like Vicki said, too, I feel that warriors can waste a lot of time & energy trying to resolve the past when it is a VERY simple process to just RELEASE it.  But, hey, some people love the ritual and the drama.  More power to 'em, but that has never been my way.  I believe in the old adage:  'Cut to the chase!'   

[erik]

Della, when you invest your energy into something, how do you get it back?

[tangerine dream]

The warrior in the now is not the same person she was 10 years ago, 20 years ago.  I personally believe this is where the xtian concept of "rebirth" comes from - because once a warrior of ANY path has that "awakening", it is like opening one's eyes into a new & different life.

Agreed!
Also will be meditating today on resolve vs release.

Thanks Della
and Everyone
 

[Quantum Shaman]

Della, when you invest your energy into something, how do you get it back?

Nobody told me there would be a pop quiz!  *LOL*

Actually, energy itself cannot be reclaimed anymore than one could step in the same river twice.  Energy is always moving, changing, transforming.  And it is infinite - probably the only TRULY infinite thing in the universe, since it really is the ONLY thing in/of the universe.  *heh*  And it's BECAUSE energy is infinite that attempting to reclaim energy from the past may not be an entirely "sound" practice in the big picture.  Point being - energy is all around us, so the energy that has been used in the "past" (tricky terminology there) is no more "trapped" than the water that flowed through the river 5 years ago is "lost".  It is simply a matter of perspective & perception.

Now, to be more specific, with regard to the warrior path, when I discover that I have some sort of attachment to something that happened 10 years ago (which would be virtually impossible at this point), the simple awareness of that attachment is usually more than sufficient to release the attachment itself.  Difficult to wrap words around it, but to use a specific example, I know a lot of people who strongly identify themselves as "an abused child" or "the adult child of an alcoholic", or any one of a thousand other labels.  For myself, I would technically qualify as "an abused child", but the DIFFERENCE is that I literally opened my eyes one day and said, "That was then, this is now."  And that was simply that.  How could I BE "an abused child" when I had become a warrior?  It wasn't possible.

To be brutally honest, what I have noticed is that people who carry that kind of baggage with them normally do so as a means of self-identity.  The "abused children" I know who are now adults literally define themselves by how they were treated 20-30 years ago, and so they are actually LIVING in the past because they have never taken the steps (physical/emotional/spiritual) to move beyond their own baggage.  If the person isn't a warrior, perhaps this is just normal human behaviour, but for a warrior it is simply not possible to go on carrying that kind of weight when it is far, far simpler to release it with the awareness that it is the baggage belonging to what amounts to a dead relative.  The phantom past self is not the person I am in the Now.

Once that is wholly realized, a lot of the energetic attachments to the "past" will fall away quite easily & naturally.  And if other (more deeply buried) attachments are discovered later on, the warrior may look at them with detachment and say to herself, "That was then, this is now."

I once knew a young man over at my Delphi forum who had spent COUNTLESS hours, months, years in recapitulation, only to discover that he was no better off than when he first began the process.  And though a lot of die-hard Toltecs may not want to hear this, it has been observed that the ritualistic practice of recap CAN cement those attachments even deeper, as opposed to allowing the warrior to release them.  I suspect the reason for this is that if a warrior begins practicing recap prior to losing self-importance, the SI itself could serve as a heavy gravity to the past, so this is yet one more reason why I insist that Toltec is a SYSTEM of Knowledge, and not just a bunch of loosely-related techniques to be practiced willy-nilly.  *LOL*

So when you ask how do *I* get back energy invested in the past?  I don't.  I simply release it to the past and summon fresh energy in the Now.  In that manner, I am moving *with* the natural flow of energy.

One of the exercises I occasionally do in my workshops is getting people to sit down with their phantom past self and really *see* that the person you were as a child or a young adult is not the person you have become.  For most who are on a spiritual path, there is some moment or incident or at least an awareness of a "delineation" - i.e., "pre-path" and "path", just to use that terminology.  And for many of us, there is a second delineation between "warrior" and "sorcerer", or between "warrior" and "wo/man of knowledge."  When we can *see* those delineations, we begin to more clearly realize that we are constantly emerging from one chrysalis into a new form of being. 

I rather doubt that the butterfly spends much time recapitulating the caterpillar. 

Once that is understood, the "teflon warrior" approach to recapitulation generally becomes the natural way of things.

Of course, that's just me.  Your mileage may vary.

[erik]

Cheers, Della! And...one more: how do you see the exercise below?

Toltec Nagual Series VIII - Bringing It Home
Filed under: The Nagual Series — December 28, 2004 @ 9:57 pm

http://krisraphael.com/2004/12/28/toltec_nagual_series_xiii_bringing_it_ho/

Here is an exercise that, if used properly, you will use the rest of your life. It consists of bringing your energy back to your core - the warriors place of power. It is in some ways similar to recapitulation in that you are returning your energy back to self.

There are two benefits to the exercise; 1) It is one of the most powerful techniques to reclaim your energy, 2) It speeds up the processing of your issues as it brings them back to self - the only place where you can process your issues.

There are similar techniques in Tibet and India, often guarded in esoteric schools. Each use different parameters for the core technique. For example, returning the energy of self to each chakra, or, pulling the energy of self out of each organ and body part and returning it to the core of self. The technique I will describe here involves reclaiming the energy we have left in our present day life, our past, our future and our probabilities.

As we go about living life we are continually extending or projecting our energy out to our house, the place we work, the people we interact with and so on. We put out our energy but we don’t reclaim it. It remains scattered about in our outer (and inner) worlds. We don’t complete the cycle. We are an extension of the Nagual. We eventually return to the Nagual. But we don’t return empty handed. We return with all our life experiences and growth. The Nagual completes its cycle when we return.

The same is true in our small worlds. We extend our energy out to our world - people, places, things, situations, but we we forget to complete the cycle. We don’t bring our energy back to self to be processed. The technique described here is one to bring back our energy to self. I call this technique ‘Back to Home.’

Part of the path of the warrior is to continually find ways to reclaim our energy and power. The average man/woman live their lives putting their energy out into their worlds, but they never reclaim it. They live in a constant state of energy depletion. Many don’t realize just how much energy it takes for personal growth. The Toltecs realized this and much of their emphasis is on conserving, reclaiming and discovering energy and power.

So here is the technique:
Begin by doing what you need to do to relax and slow down your thoughts. What ever technique works best for you to center and quiet your mind is fine.

When you have quieted and become still begin to scan your day, the people you interacted with, any situations that stand out or caused an emotional charge, your mood and so on. As you tune into your day begin to bring it to where you are sitting right now, in the moment. Go deeper into self, to the core of self. This is the warrior’s place of power, deep in the middle of self, in the spinal column.

Like a magnet, or a powerful vortex, let the core of your self bring the energy of your day back to self, deep into the core. Bring each situation, interaction, activity, wherever you have put out your energy back to the core of self.

Continue the process until you sense that you have brought back all of the energy you have put out during the day. This can take 15 minutes a half an hour or longer.

Now begin to re-focus on your past, your childhood all of the way up to now. Scan for stuck energy pockets, charged emotions and pull the energy out of them bringing it back to the core of self. Follow the emotional charges (they may not go in chronological order) and pull the energy out of each one of them as they come up.

Place your focus on your back. Sense the energy at your back and energetically move back into your past. Gather up all of the energy of your past and bring it back to the here and now, deep in the core of self. The more stuck energy you are able to reclaim from the past and bring to the core of self, the quicker you will process your past and free yourself from its chains.

You can use breathing in these processes to help facilitate going out to the energy you have left and bringing it back. As your chest expands with your breath, expand out to where you have left your energy. As your chest falls and contracts bring the energy back, deep into the core of self.
Reclaiming the energy of the past can take a considerable amount of time and needs to be done repeatedly to clear yourself. You won’t do it all in one sitting.

Next, re-focus on your future, your dreams, hopes and desires. Move your attention to the front of your body and energetically move forward into your future. Scan your goals, your aspirations. Begin to pull your energy out of them and bring it back to the core of self. Some people have resistance to removing their energy out of their future. They think it will stop their dreams from manifesting. Actually, the opposite is true. When your energy is stuck in future dreams it cannot flow. You are stuck in one point in your assemblage point. Also, by bringing your energy back to self you reclaim the energy necessary to manifest that which you want.

A side note here; when you bring your energy back to the core of self you open the door to your inner nagual. You connect to higher aspects of self that ’see’. It takes the connection to the the core of self with sufficient energy to ’see’. When I access my inner nagual I begin with a streamlined version of this technique.

After you have brought your energy back from the future re-focus on your probabilities. Move your attention to the sides of your body and move out. Your probabilities are lines where part of your self literally split off from your core self due to wounding and/or major decisions and actions you have taken in your life. You may or may not be aware of your probabilities. In any case, energetically move out from your sides and, reclaim your energy bringing it back to self.

The full technique, as described above, can be done once a week. But at other times you can do a scaled down version. During the day I often, like a magnet, bring my energy back to the core of self. By doing so I reconnect with my essence and restore depleted energy. It also helps me process the events of the day.

[Quantum Shaman]

Cheers, Della! And...one more: how do you see the exercise below?

Reminds me of guided imagery.  The intent behind it seems sound, but there is a vast difference between "visualizing" something and manifesting the intent behind it. 

There is one thing in techniques like this which I find rather ironic.  It is summed up as:

Reclaiming the energy of the past can take a considerable amount of time and needs to be done repeatedly to clear yourself. You won’t do it all in one sitting.

Anything that requires TIME also requires ENERGY.  So when you think about it, spending a lot of TIME doing this type of exercise/recap also spends a lot of ENERGY in an attempt to... er... recapture energy... so... um... it creates a paradox of sorts in that one is spending energy to get energy, and being a stalker I am of the mindset that the same energy might be better spent in EXPERIENCING the now as opposed to trying to somehow "recapture" something that is perceived to be trapped in the past.

Now, with that said, I want to make it very clear that I can see advantages to releasing our attachments to the past, but to me this is a process done through awareness and intent, and is virtually instantaneous.  Doesn't mean we don't have to repeat that instantaneous process from time to time. 

From the pov of a ruthless stalker/seer, what I normally observe with warriors who engage in lengthy recapitulation processes is that they become attached to the process itself as much as they may be attached to whatever it is they are attempting to recap.

Let.  It.  Go.

A lady I once worked with is a bona fide hypochondriac, but when I started stalking her problems (at her request), it quickly became apparent that ALL of her adult "illnesses" and medical anomalies can be tracked to one single incident when she was 15 and essentially had a bad fall while skiing.  What it boiled down to was that she came face to face with her mortality, but instead of taking Death as her advisor as a result, she chose the opposite path of taking Death as her IDENTITY.  As a result, she has been "dying" ever since, though there is nothing medically wrong with her.  She has had countless surgeries to correct countless phantom problems, even though the doctors have told her repeatedly, "We don't think the surgery will correct the symptoms." 

Moral of the story?  Though she has been through dozens of psychologists & psychiatrists, she remains "stuck" in the identity she chose for herself at the age of 15.  At one point, when she was working closely with Orlando, she actually RELEASED all of that baggage, and became a healthy & vibrant woman for the span of about 2+ years.  But in the end, the IDENTITY was of more value to her than her own freedom - in that it enabled her to get support from family & friends on all levels:  emotional, spiritual, financial.  "Oh, poor baby!"  Those were the words she needed to hear and to that end, she chose her path. It was much HARDER, on the other hand, to embrace real freedom - because that meant shedding the comfort zones of the past and making strides toward discovering who she IS as opposed to who she WAS when she had her fall.

Bottom line:  if someone is attached to their idea about who they are, no amount of recap is going to free them.  The ONLY thing that can free them is what my friend discovered:  release it, let it go, and simply BE in the now.

Problem is... it's too easy, and for some folks, it's much more desirable to hold to the comfort zones and go on living in the past.  Letting something go requires virtually no effort - no expenditure of energy.  So the question becomes, does the person REALLY want to let it go at all?

Sorry - off on a bit of a ramble.   

[Michael]

who is this person we recapitulate?
why don't we just capitulate?

lets take a look at this shifty character that strolls through our memory like a slavering beast.

this agony of forgetfulness, this person?
who is this person we try to recall?

Why not tell him or her, to piss off?
Leave us to our lawn of warmth,
leave us with your tales of lie.

have we not wandered enough in the desert of the heart?

you won't listen to me, so let my friend speak:

A Rascal in the Bazaar

There's a rascal in the bazaar,
a real slippery character, as wily as they come.
He's an insufferable windbag
and will say anything to get what he wants.

He's in hot water with the inspector
as well as with the supervisor of the bazaar.
From the pharmacist to the boza maker,
everyone's complaining about him.

When they say to him,
"Why are you destroying the bazaar?
Don't touch anything! Hold your tongue!
Shame on you,"
he becomes contrite and promises
a hundred times,
" I won't do it again. I won't touch a thing.
I'll stay far away."

Then he goes and steals from his neighbors
and pawns their valuables.
He uses the money
to buy wine and throws parties.

Then he acts like he's deathly ill
and throws himself to the ground trembling.
When you see him,
you think he's had malaria for years.

But it's all fake.
He does this only to make others feel sorry for him.

He tells everyone who will listen to him,
"At such-and-such a place, with so-and-so
I've got so much gold and silver.
To whomever helps me with my sickness,
I'll return the favor a hundred times over."

He shaves many people's heads* this way,                       *Cheats people
taking their money and swindling them.

When they realize they've been fleeced,
they throw dirt on their heads
and rip their collars,
all because of this cruel rascal.

His tongue is a hundred yards long
and looks so sweet.
But when you see the wounds he opens,
his mouth is just a deep pit filled with snakes.

If  you try to kick him out,
he starts talking and tells the funniest jokes.
His words are as sweet as honey.

He becomes so full of love and kindness.
Dropping to the floor in front of you,
he makes you fall in love with him.
Your heart bursts open,
and you forget all your upsets.

To hear him brag about the goodness and his talents
you'd think he's the Lokman*of our time.                              * A legendary Sufi

When he talks about devoutness,
he shaves your head as smooth as a pumpkin
or a cucumber.

The time comes, and he starts talking about
absence and God's knowledge,
impressing us so much, we can only exclaim,
"He's either Cuneyd or some other great Sheikh!"

But if you dig a little deeper, if you search,
you'll see it's all deception and treachery.

He's a disaster really, total garbage.
He doesn't care about anyone but himself.

He doesn't have a real job or even an occupation.
He's just greedy, that's all.
He goes from table to table, stuffing himself.

He's as crooked as they come.
Even the best bazaar inspector
is bamboozled by his tricks.

When he cries and wails,
everyone, big and small, comes rushing to his aid
even though they know he doesn't need it.

The inspector is your mind,
the bazaar your disposition.
And that dirty, deceitful rascal in the bazaar
is your "self".

Everybody's exasperated with him.
They've all lost their shirts.
They say this rascal casts a spell on everyone.

Since he's a gifted sorcerer,
it's difficult to deal with him.
The only thing we can profitably do
is stay far away from him.
Go instead to the place of the greatest greats.......
 
- Rumi

[tangerine dream]

Actually, energy itself cannot be reclaimed anymore than one could step in the same river twice.  Energy is always moving, changing, transforming.  And it is infinite - probably the only TRULY infinite thing in the universe, since it really is the ONLY thing in/of the universe.  *heh*  And it's BECAUSE energy is infinite that attempting to reclaim energy from the past may not be an entirely "sound" practice in the big picture.  Point being - energy is all around us, so the energy that has been used in the "past" (tricky terminology there) is no more "trapped" than the water that flowed through the river 5 years ago is "lost".  It is simply a matter of perspective & perception.

This is how I see it, too.